The Million Dollar Mermaid: An Autobiography

During Hollywood's heyday, big studios battled over the next box-office attraction. While Gene Kelly danced and Judy Garland sang, Esther Williams swam into the heart of America with her dazzling smile, stunning aquabatics, and whole-some appeal. Hand-picked for stardom by movie mogul Louis B. Mayer, Esther shed her wide-eyed innocence at what she affectionately calls University MGM, a unique educational institution where sex appeal and glamour were taught, a school where idols were born. Once a national swimming champion and struggling salesgirl, overnight she became one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood. And though fame came quickly, Esther's personal life was often less than joyous. Through troubled marriages, cross-dressing lovers, financial bankruptcy, she shares the ups and downs of her extraordinary career in The Million Dollar Mermaid, a wildly entertaining behind-the-scenes account of one of Tinseltown's classic dream factories.

DIEHL, Digby

Williams, Esther

Humor & Entertainment

Mariner Books

Katrina's Garden of Hope is an exciting, adventurous family saga full of laughter and tears. Their ancestors were invited into Russia from Germany between the years of 1762 and the 1800s by Katherine the Great, a German princess who ruled Russia along with Alexander I. Promised religious and cultural freedoms, along with military exemption, they found their way of life threatened as new Russian rulers forbade these freedoms in the early 1900s. Forced to migrate from Russia to America, families faced one hardship after another in the Dakota Prairies. This stern region, with its severe weather, dust storms, droughts, blizzards and locusts, taught the settlers that their children were their most important treasure. With perseverance this new, harsh land becomes a Garden of Hope. This story is full of adventure, suspense and love. Share in the humor, sorrow and faith of Katrina, Christian and the immigrant families as they learn to adapt to early American ways.

Katrina's Garden of Hope

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

iUniverse, Inc.

Not since David Niven wrote the bestselling The Moon's a Balloon and its sequel Bring on the Empty Horses has one of Hollywood's great stars written with such genuine wit and candor about
* what it was like to work in the movie factories where actors were pampered and coddled, yet expected to work without complaint for long, hard hours
* what it was like to be young and sexy and to be turned into an object of desire for millions of moviegoers
* what it was like to live in a world of almost total unreality, yet be expected to go about the business of finding a mate and raising a family, and avoiding personal scandal at all costs.
Now, for the hundreds of thousands of people who read and loved both of Niven's books, comes Esther Williams's wonderfully witty, fresh, and frank autobiography, all about an eighteen-year-old girl who reluctantly answers the siren call of MGM -- at the time, the most powerful and prestigious movie studio in the world -- and who soon finds herself launched on a career that will last more than twenty years, during which time she will help to create a genre of film that seems almost unimaginable today, yet which still holds all its original freshness and fascination, and who becomes during those years one of the world's top box office stars.
Williams calls MGM her "university," and the education she got there was one in how to project glamour and femininity, how to make yourself desirable while always, always playing the lady. No one who were through that university has ever written before with such absolute candor about what it was really like -- the affairs, the gossip, the tricks of the trade, the competition, the deals, the fights, and the methods the studios had for keeping their stars in line.
With a sharp mind and a rapier wit, Esther Williams brings to life those times and those bigger-than-life people, telling her stories with respect, yet with clear-eyed candor. Filled with behind-the-scenes gossip and tales of real life in a fantasy world, The Million Dollar Mermaid is the book legions of film fans have been waiting for.

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Simon&Schuster

The author offers her perspective on life during Hollywood's Golden Age, chronicling her youthful idealism, her training to be a star, and her own tempestuous personal life.

The Million Dollar Mermaid (Biography)

Reference & Collections

Thorndike Pr

The Million Dollar Mermaid

Daily prayer as a way of spiritual growth by one of the great 'Elders" of the Russian Church. Perhaps the first full and clear explanation of how to use daily prayer as a path of spiritual development, written during the last times of classical Russian monasticism, by Saint Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894).

The Path of Prayer: Four Sermons on Prayer by Saint Theophan the Recluse

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

Praxis Inst Pr

This book will provide you with a comprehensive set of lessons that will help eliminate bullying in your school. It includes more than 300 pages of insights and skill-building activities for children who are bullies, bully victims and bystanders. 
This book includes: 
• School-wide and classroom strategies • 19 Lessons for bystanders • 15 Lessons for bullies (Learning a Better Way) • 26 Lessons for the bullied • Skills for Students with Special Needs • Research Summaries on Bullying and Student Violence • Electronic Bullying • Dealing with Sexual Harassment • Zero Tolerance-Does It Work? • School Bullying Survey • Anti-Bullying Policy • School Response to Threats • Strategies for Teachers • Approaches to Share with Parents 
Use this resource to help your school develop a bully-free environment in your school for all children.

The Bully, the Bullied, and Beyond

Teen & Young Adult

Social Issues

YouthLight, Inc.

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